THE RENEGADES {MCU}

V: No Slip-Ups

It's been a year since the first 5 died. 3 more are dead. Evelyn and Harper have been in The Red Room for the past year and they have witnessed worse things than death, and they have seen it with front-row tickets, without a choice, with no control over their own lives. There's never a choice, he's in charge, no one else, and everyone knows this.

They had learned to fight, kill, cheat and steal, the perfect traits of a killer. That was his mission, to make them all his killers. Even though they hadn't exactly said it, they were all smart enough to put the pieces together. They have gotten another year of how to be a killer 101. Except for this year, they were taught how to take down full-grown men in less than 20 seconds. This year they were taught where to stab someone so it goes quicker, quieter, and with less blood. This year they were killed. The blood on their hands would never clean, and neither one of the twins knew how to feel about it.

"Никогда не переходите на личности'' They always said. Over and over again. Drilling it into the initiate's brain. (Never let it get personal)

Harper had been placed in Theft as her elective. Evelyn thought it fit her well, she knew she wasn't as miserable in this as she was in others. Stealing was something she was good at and enjoyed doing back at the academy. Evelyn had been placed into Weapon assembly, a class she didn't see the point of since she knew it all. Although, she did enjoy improving her speed in assembling and disassembling the weapons. The only reason they were allowed to pick an elective was that no one knew each other well enough to know what their strong suit was, so, the initiates got to choose if they could improve this skill and use it to their advantage.

⛧⛧⛧

As the woman had said, everything went the same, moved the same, and was organized the same every day. Just as it had at the academy. Today was no different.

The twins had got up at 6:00 AM, as they did every day and had made it down to breakfast by 6:15 AM like they did every day.

Harper was never late. Not anymore. She couldn't afford to be late.

One thing that didn't change was Harper's love for the sound of her own voice. Every day at breakfast Harper would sit down across from her sister and begin to rant about whatever dream she had had or some theory she had come up with. Then mid-rant she would stop to acknowledge the blonde who had been their tour guide the day they had arrived, who they had learned had the name of Yelena. They had become quite fond of the blonde, even Evelyn, although she didn't say it aloud.

Then she would rant till it was time to transition to ballet. And that's when they would all stand up and put their trays of food in a pile on the table by the door and move down the hall. With quiet small talk echoing through the hallway. No one dares to be any louder.

The ballet instructor was a grumpy brunette in his 40s with a thick Russian accent. His name was Mr. Adrik. Harper knew this meant Darkness in Russian, but was scared of him even without the scary name.

They spun and they twirled, plié after plié. No exceptions, he expected perfection, and that's what he got. To just anyone a mistake was nothing, something natural humans did, not here, here they were learning how to be assassins, not humans. To the widows it was everything. If you didn't move correctly if you didn't so much as move in sync. It would be a life-or-death situation. It could mean no food for 3 days, it could mean the punching bag for 4 hours, it could mean a fight to the death with another widow, which happened often, they could have no weakness in their program.

In The Red, Room mistakes weren't allowed.

So they kept their back straight and chin high and danced, all their focus on the steps and the yelling of criticism and insults from the man in the corner. To say they were used to it would be a lie. Saying they'll get used to the pressure eventually would also be a lie as well, some pressure you never get used to. But, they walked out of there completely exhausted, pretending they weren't. Just like every day.